1. Field of the Invention
The following description relates to a wireless network. More particularly, the present invention following description relates to a method and mobile terminal for allocating an Internet protocol (IP) address in a wireless network which may prevent Internet protocol version 6 (IPv6) addresses auto-configured in the mobile terminal from conflicting.
2. Description of Related Art
Generally, an Internet protocol version 4 (IPv4)-based network has been used for data communications between mobile terminals and communication nodes in a wired/wireless communication network. Since IPv4 uses an address system of 32 bits, addresses which may be allocated are becoming exhausted in the IPv4-based network as Internet usages increase. Accordingly, Internet engineering task force (IETF) standardized Internet protocol version 6 (IPv6) using an address system of 128 bits.
Similar to the description above, since it is difficult that a user manually configures an IP address as IP address systems increase, efforts are required to be exerted for automatically allocating the IP address via interactions between mobile terminals and communication nodes in the IPv6-based network.
An IPv6 address is generally allocated in mobile terminals by one of three methods described below. Specifically, the three methods correspond to i) a static configuration method configuring network information in each host by hand, ii) a dynamic configuration method providing a host with network information by using a network protocol such as a dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP) according to a request, and iii) an automatic configuration method configuring network information according to a policy determined by a rule between all hosts in a network.
The dynamic configuration method is also referred to as a “statefull auto-configuration method” using a server such as the DHCP, and obtaining an address, and any one of addresses which may be allocated in the server is allocated to a host side when a host side makes a request for an address to a DHCP server. Accordingly, the server is required to have a large-scale database, and be strictly managed.
The automatic configuration method is also referred to as a “stateless auto-configuration method” which a host side spontaneously generates an address. Specifically, the automatic configuration method generates an address using interface identification (ID) information of the host side, prefix information obtained from a router, or well-known prefix information. Therefore, the host is responsible for generating and allocating the address of the host.
However, since it is required that the access router (AR) in the network should manage all IP addresses which a mobile terminal uses, a problem may occur in operating the network when the AR is unaware of an automatically-configured IP address although the mobile terminal configures the IP address spontaneously and automatically.
Accordingly, there is a need for a method and mobile terminal for allocating an Internet protocol (IP) address in a wireless network which can prevent Internet protocol version 6 (IPv6) addresses auto-configured in the mobile terminal from conflicting.